Christmas shopping can be stressful, so we’ve put together a list of our top 10 best-selling Christmas plant gifts for you! Whether you’re looking for presents for Mum, Christmas flowers, hyacinths or indoor bulbs for Christmas, you’ll find a range of great gardening Christmas gifts right here. Look out for our special offers too, helping you save money this Christmas.

We’ll send the gifts straight to your loved ones in time for Christmas and you’ll only pay one P&P charge, however many gifts you send. If you spend over £60, P&P is free!

Hibiscus ‘Festive Flair’ and ‘Pearl’
With pretty ‘candle’ buds that erupt into the most sumptuous blooms, these hibiscus plants make perfect gifts for Christmas. Each 15cm (6in) bloom lasts for 4-6 days and the plants will rebloom several times throughout the year. They can even be planted outside in a sheltered spot in the summer.

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Hyacinth Scented Pink Basket
Hyacinths for Christmas? You bet! These bright pink hyacinths have been specially coaxed to flower at Christmastime, giving your loved ones a delightful display of stylish blooms with an exquisite fragrance. The bulbs are planted into a hand-woven basket and sent just as they are sprouting to ensure that your friends and family get the most joy from their beautiful Christmas gift.

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Narcissus Tête à Tête
Packed full of dainty daffodil bulbs, this unusual Christmas gift brings a little springtime magic indoors! The bulbs will burst into bloom over Christmas and can be planted in the garden, ready for another flush of flowers in spring.

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Hyacinth ‘White Pearl Basket’
The snowy white petals make hyacinth ‘White Pearl’ the perfect Christmas indoor plant, with the added bonus of being able to plant the bulbs outdoors in spring! They come in a pretty holly basket and will flower 2-3 weeks receipt.

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Crocus in a Pot
Presented in a gorgeous zinc pot, this unique Christmas gift just keeps on giving! The crocus bulbs burst into life in cool white and warm purple tones, giving a spring-like feel to the dark days of winter. Plant them outside after flowering for more blooms the following spring.

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Princettia®
The ultimate in Christmas flowers, Princettia® flowers its heart out for up to 6 months in the colder months of the year! With its strong stems and pink flowers that cover the whole plant, it adds a wonderful touch of brightness to any room. It’ll even tolerate draughts and central heating!

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Surprise Gift
If you’re really stuck for Christmas gift ideas or on a tight budget, we’ve got the perfect solution. For just £9.99 you can send your loved ones a gift worth at least £12.99, or for £14.99 they’ll receive a gift worth at least £18.99.

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Topiary Plant Pets
If you’re looking for outdoor Christmas plants to send as a fun gift this year, our topiary plant pets may be just what you’re looking for. One of our best-selling Christmas gifts, you can choose from either the cat or squirrel. Each set comes with a cat or squirrel frame and one buxus (box) plant in a 9cm pot.

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Holly Tree ‘Golden King’
New to our range this Christmas, this handsome holly tree looks fabulous all year round with its glossy green and gold foliage, white spring flowers and red winter berries. Grow it in a pot on the patio or as a feature plant in the garden.

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Mini Azalea Trio
Perfect for the mantelpiece, windowsill or as a table decoration, these miniature plants make excellent gifts with their bright colours.

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.

Great British Garden Revival
Thompson & Morgan is due to feature in a new BBC show that aims to reignite a passion for gardening by showing viewers how to fill their gardens with flowers, plants and trees. The Great British Garden Revival starts on Monday 9th December on BBC Two and the series of 10 hour-long programmes includes episodes on wild flowers, shrubberies, front gardens, cottage gardens, ornamental bedding and lots more. Filming took place at Thompson & Morgan’s trial grounds in Suffolk for the ‘bedding’ episode – we don’t yet know when it will be aired, but we’ll keep you posted.

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Playing outside is really important

Project Wild Thing
According to recent research, children are very out of touch with nature, with many rarely going outside to play, even though many studies show that spending time outside increases their health, well-being and happiness. Project Wild Thing calls for everyone to ‘Swap screen time for wild time’ and get outdoors to reconnect with nature. If you’re stuck for ideas or pushed for time, an app is available to download to iOS and Android devices with loads of ideas, taking from mere minutes to hours and days – it’s up to you how much you do.

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.

Which vegetables will store and how long will they keep? This is an annual dilemma faced by many gardeners. Often the need for storage is caused by gardeners being too generous in their sowings and planting and creating their own ‘gluts’ and ‘surpluses’. Why plant 200 onion sets if you only use a single bulb per week?

Sowing little and often reduces the wastage and ‘glut’ of the most popular subjects – lettuce, spinach, radish, spring onions, beets. Some of these, particularly the leafy vegetables, are unsuitable for storing anyway, as they quickly go limp, lose their freshness and eye appeal.

The most important thing to remember is ‘fresh is best’, that is why you are growing your own in the first place – for their taste, freshness, quality and nutritional values.

Freeze surpluses of shelling peas and sweetcorn, as they quickly lose their freshness and taste once picked. Frozen peas are one of the few vegetables that are worth buying in the supermarket as they are harvested and frozen very quickly, so maintaining their taste and nutrition. With broad beans, the green seeded varieties are less prone to discolouring in the freezer. French and runner bean varieties freeze exceptionally well.

Brassicas
Winter cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, savoy and winter cabbage are best left where they are growing, although need to be netted against pigeons. They can be dug up, leaving the soil attached to the roots and hung upside down by tying with string suspended from a beam in your shed. They will store for a good couple of months.

Maincrop onions/shallots
Lift the bulbs on a dry, sunny but windy day and leave them on the soil surface to ‘set’ skins. Do not rub these off. Carefully remove any soil from the roots, and store sound bulbs in slatted trays, used tights, polypropylene onion nets or tied in ropes and hung in the shed.

Maincrop beet, carrots, parsnip, swede, turnip,
These can be left in the soil, although soil pests and rodents may take advantage, and prolonged severely cold soil temperatures can affect the root texture and reduce quality and flavour. We suggest lifting some of your roots, twisting off the leaves and storing in boxes in layers of barely damp multipurpose compost, sieved soil or sand. Keep cool but frost free. Place a blanket over the boxes to keep them dark. Roots in boxes should not touch each other to avoid rots spreading and to allow easier air movement and moisture between the roots.

Leeks and trench celery
These really are best left where they are and lifted as required. The soil can be earthed further up the stems to protect them during the harshest weather.

Maincrop potatoes
Sound, dry, fully ‘set’ skin tubers are best stored in hessian sacks or thick paper bags and covered with a blanket to block out any light. Potatoes must be stored in cool but frost free conditions in the dark and will store for many months.

Important reminders

Store only blemish free, sound, good quality produce

Check stored produce regularly and remove any showing rotting or symptoms of disease

Never store in polythene as sweating will quickly encourage rotting

Sheds/garages should be cool but frost free, although using blankets for insulation and darkness may suffice

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.

This giant pumpkin recently broke the UK record for the heaviest specimen at the Autumn Pumpkin Festival in Southampton. The ‘monster’ is now outside Thompson & Morgan’s offices in Ipswich, waiting to be smashed open for its seeds to be counted.

Enter our competition and win £250 in Thompson & Morgan vouchers

One lucky winner will receive £250 worth of Thompson & Morgan vouchers AND 5 seeds from the record-breaking pumpkin!

All you have to do is go to our pumpkin competition page and enter your details and your guess for a chance to win this great prize.

The competition ends at midnight on Friday 15th November 2013 and the winner will be notified by 10am on Monday 2nd December.

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.

The winners of Thompson & Morgan’s 2013 competition winners have been announced! There were 8 categories to enter this year and the judges had a very tough time deciding on the final winner in each one.

Top prizes were £100 or £250 in Thompson & Morgan vouchers and runners-up each won £10 worth of vouchers.

Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up and thank you to everyone who sent in photos. Here are the winning entries:

Plant portrait of any Thompson & Morgan product
Sarah Bush, Liverpool
Sarah’s close-up of a petunia bloom covered in drops of water was a clear winner in this category.

Petunia ‘Purple Tower’
Russell Good, Huntingdon
We like to give our customers a challenge now and again, and this year we asked who could grow the tallest petunia ‘Purple Tower’! Russell wins £250 in Thompson & Morgan vouchers.

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.